IT security solutions for the Diakonie

DIOS Diakonie (www.diakonie-os.de) is a company of the Protestant Church in the city and district of Osnabrück with about 2100 employees. It is responsible for facilities for the elderly and youth welfare, for diaconal counselling and refugee work as well as for basic, advanced and further training.

For the secure Internet connection of two main and 25 branch offices, DIOS Diakonie together with DIAKO-Dienstleistungs GmbH as an internal service provider relies on a cluster solution of NextGen UTM firewalls from Securepoint. Already during the joint project planning the special requirements for which a solution had to be found became apparent with the many branch offices as well as the central node. For this reason, DIAKO-Dienstleistungs GmbH successfully carried out extensive tests of software and hardware for DIOS using a Securepoint test model.

Further feature requirements for the new solution were

Independent support

Speed and flexibility on site through our own team

Compliance requirements as defined in the project appraisal

The systems to be replaced were converted to Securepoint solutions at the beginning of 2019: The initial installation took place at both main locations, each with two Internet connections. A cluster solution with two RC 1000 NextGen UTM firewalls was implemented there under time pressure. After another two months, 8 locations were already integrated into the network via VPN. The remaining 17 locations were integrated within another month.

Altogether, three Black Dwarf VPN Gateways, 19 RC100, five RC200 as well as two RC1000 are in use at the DIOS Diakonie as NextGen UTM firewalls from Securepoint. In order to be able to act flexibly and at short notice if necessary, DIAKO-Dienstleistungs GmbH also has replacement devices for DIOS on site.

In addition, by August, the 150 VPN clients that had been in use until then were converted to the free Securepoint VPN client. For the IT department of DIAKO-Dienstleistungs GmbH, the 2-factor authentication, which was not available with the old solution, was particularly important, also in view of the next IT audit. Now the DIOS deaconry is 100% online with Securepoint.

"It was important to us during the changeover that we could operate the systems used independently and without external support. This was not possible with the solution we had previously used. At Securepoint we have fast and good support when help is needed. That was already a decisive factor for us.

Our focus is clearly on independence, i.e. also on speed and flexibility in case of failure. This applies, for example, to failover and switching to a different Internet connection if the other one does not work, because we use two Internet connections at many locations".

When we were looking for a new solution, however, costs were also an issue, and with this in mind, we also needed training that would enable us to operate the solution ourselves. The feedback on the training courses has always been very good. They also have more of a workshop character with a lot of practical relevance.

"And of course Securepoint as a German manufacturer and the No-Backdoor-Guarantee also played a role in the decision. This was not the final criterion, but especially with regard to data protection in the church sector, this is important. In contrast to the solution we had used before, this is something else. With Securepoint we can also meet these special data protection requirements", Fischer explains